


The Blue Bear

by aosav



Series: Kageyama Friendships [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9613577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosav/pseuds/aosav
Summary: Natsu breaks her arm and Kageyama asks Hinata to pass something along to her.





	

“She fell out of a tree,” Hinata says.

Tanaka shakes his head knowingly. “Been there,” he says. “When I was her age, I was nothing but broken bones and knocked-out teeth.” He puffs out his chest. “I was one tough kid.”

“Is she okay?” Asahi asks, his expression worried.

“She’s fine,” Hinata says. “She got a cast and she’s made everyone sign it. Look!” Hinata pulls out his phone and flips through to the photos he took over the weekend. Natsu is proudly showing off her bright yellow cast, reaching from her wrist to just below her elbow. It is covered in doddles and signatures. Hinata's name and his drawing of a dinosaur take up most of the space by her wrist on the top.

“She seems in good spirits about it,” Suga says, smiling at the photo.

“Yep!” Hinata says. “She’s pretty pleased about it, actually. None of her friends have ever broken a bone before.”

Hinata turns the phone to show everyone else, too. Kageyama doesn’t say anything, but he frowns at the photo – in a more frowny way than his usual frown.

“What?” Hinata asks him.

Kageyama looks up from the photo. “What?” he says back.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hinata demands. “You’re frowning at my picture.”

“I’m not,” Kageyama snaps. Now he isn’t frowning. Now he’s glaring.

“You were,” Hinata amends.

“I wasn’t,” Kageyama denies.

Hinata opens his mouth to call Kageyama out on his blatant lying, but Daichi interrupts before he can do it and tells everyone to get ready to stretch. Kageyama walks away. Hinata squints his eyes at the back of his head. Kageyama was really rude, frowning at his picture of Natsu, and then he lied about it. Hinata will have to find out why after practice. Or maybe during practice. Or maybe while they stretch.

Hinata runs to put his phone away and get ready to stretch. He tries to get next to Kageyama, but Yamaguchi calls him over to ask more questions about Natsu, so he ends up stretching next to Yamaguchi instead.

Kageyama is extra frowny all practice. He won’t talk to Hinata about Natsu – he only wants to talk about volleyball. Hinata tries to get Kageyama to answer him about the frowning and the lying, but Kageyama keeps distracting him and, before Hinata knows it, practice is over and all of the equipment has been put away and everyone is leaving.

Hinata rushes for the door behind Kageyama, intent on confronting him, but Suga distracts him.

“Nice job today, Hinata!” Suga calls. He walks over and pats Hinata's shoulder. “Your serves are so much better now than they were at the beginning of the year,” Suga says.

Hinata stands up straighter. “Thank you, Suga-san!” he says. His serves _have_ improved. It’s nice that Suga notices, unlike Kageyama, who never compliments Hinata on anything. Oh, yeah. “See you tomorrow, Suga-san,” Hinata says, nodding at Suga and racing for the door again. He’s only a few minutes behind Kageyama – he should be able to catch him no problem.

 

* * *

 

(Hinata does not catch up to Kageyama. He does not see Kageyama again until the next day just before his first class.

By that point, he has forgotten about the photo entirely.)

 

* * *

 

“Hinata-kun,” Kageyama says.

Hinata looks up from his bag. Kageyama is standing in front of him, looking awkward.

“Hi, Kageyama-kun,” Hinata says. “What’s up?”

“This is for Natsu,” Kageyama says. He holds up a stuffed bear. It is blue and soft-looking with a pink ribbon around its neck. Kageyama is holding the bear out towards Hinata, so Hinata takes it.

It’s just as soft as it looks.

“Did you buy this for her?” Hinata asks. He kneads the bear’s stomach with his fingers. It really is very, very soft.

“It’s to help her heal quickly,” Kageyama says. “My grandmother gave it to me when I broke my arm and it helped me.”

“When did your grandmother give it to you?” Hinata asks. He holds the bear closer to his face and stares at it. The bear looks pretty old, now that he’s really looking at it. It also doesn’t look like something that someone would give a high schooler.

“When I was six,” Kageyama says. He sounds strange.

Hinata looks up from the bear to see what’s wrong with Kageyama. Kageyama is looking at the bear in Hinata's hands. He looks … he doesn’t look _sad_ , exactly, but there is something very un-Kageyama-like in his expression.

“Will you give it to Natsu?” Kageyama asks, abruptly. He looks up, meeting Hinata's gaze again. As soon as their eyes meet, the strange softness in Kageyama's expression vanishes. He just looks like Kageyama again.

Hinata stares at Kageyama, wondering about that strange softness. Usually he would just ask, but he doesn’t this time. Something tells him not to, and, for once, Hinata decides to listen to it.

Kageyama looks from Hinata to the bear and back again. His expression furrows. Before he can ask again about giving it to Natsu, though, or ask what Hinata is thinking, Hinata leaps into action.

“Sure,” Hinata says brightly, grinning at Kageyama. “I’ll give it to her after school today.” He puts the bear into his bag, stroking its head one more time before he closes his bag with the bear safely inside.

Kageyama watches the bear disappear into the bag and only looks up once Hinata's bag is closed; then, he looks at Hinata again. “Thank you,” he says, stiffly.

Hinata opens his mouth to respond – he’s the one who should be thanking Kageyama, not the other way around – but Kageyama turns and walks away. Rude again. Hinata is tempted to run after him and _make_ Kageyama listen to his thank you, but he doesn’t. It’s for the same reason that he didn’t ask about the strange soft look on Kageyama's face. He just … doesn’t feel like he should. Weird.

Hinata opens his bag again and looks at Kageyama's bear. He strokes its soft head. Natsu will love it.

Then Hinata looks up, barely catching sight of Kageyama's back as he turns a corner at the end of the hall. He looks stiff and uncomfortable, like usual, but Hinata can still picture the strange soft look on his face when he was looking at the bear.

Kageyama didn’t say that he wanted the bear back, but Hinata is pretty sure that he will. He’ll bring it back to Kageyama once Natsu is healed and, if Kageyama doesn’t want it, then Natsu can keep it. Hinata doesn’t think that Kageyama will reject it, though, once Natsu is done with it. Something tells him that this is more than just a stuffed bear – not that Kageyama will ever admit to that.

“I really do have to do everything in this partnership,” Hinata says, out loud, to himself, in the middle of the empty hallway.

The empty hallway – oh, shoot! He has class!

Hinata takes off down the hallway, running for his first class of the day. He might not be late if he hurries. As he runs, the top of his bag flaps open and closed. Hinata sees flashes of blue in the corner of his eye.

He wants to reach down and touch the bear’s soft head again.

He wants to ask Kageyama about the weird way he looked at the bear, too.

Hinata settles for touching the bear for now. Maybe he’ll ask Kageyama about it later. Maybe he’ll ask about it when he brings the bear back in a few weeks. Maybe this will be the thing that gets Kageyama to finally open up and act like a real partner.

As he rounds the corner, Hinata puts on a burst of speed, his fingers buried in the bear’s fur where it is still tucked into his bag and his mind running full speed ahead.

This is going to be _great_.


End file.
